gogeric, I like that idea. There's a fan-age which is similar to that idea called Ahra Pahts. I'd like to see a similar idea put in place for Uru where explorers could "restore" an area of this district or whatever.

Just a suggestion,here. Why don't we start off with a list of know D'ni writing rules according to cannon and maybe that could help guide the new guildsmen/women??

Such as YOU cannot create a age/world, only Yahvo, The Great Maker, or God can do that. You can only write a descrpitive book and link book to a age/world. All ages/worlds are already created in the Great Tree by Yahvo. YOU/we are not Yahvo or the Great Maker.

That being said. Out of cannon, the Great Tree would then,being a tree , have has many possiblities as there are branches and leaves. Make any sense??

That's pretty much irrelevant to the writing process, though. Indeed, there was some debate (albeit not much) as to whether this was even true. Uh, I don't know, some rules:

- Don't write an age with laws of physics different to this one.- Don't write artificial objects into ages.- Don't write an excessively hostile environment -- i.e. a world made entirely of lava.

All I can think of off the top of my head. Remember these are rules created by the D'ni, not laws of the art. They can be broken, it's just an incredibly bad idea to do so.

This always reminds my of a similar situation involving the Library of Babel. The Library of Babel is a hypothetical library which contains every physically possible book of finite length. Of course, this means the Library is infinitely large and contains all your favourite books, all the books that have been lost, and books that might have been written. (Even the Book of Marrim! ) However, the majority of books are most certainly going to be gibberish. Given that, if I wanted to find a book, I would have to (say in a search function for the Library) type in every character myself, which for all intents and purposes means I wrote the book. There should be an obvious parallel:

Library of Babel = Great Tree

book = Age

searching for book = discovering an Age in the Great Tree

writing book = creating an Age (à la Gods)

"For all intents and purposes" means that it cannot be proven by any means of physical detection, so (in the tradition of the Copenhagen Interpretation), if we can't prove it one way or another, there's no point in speculation. Input = write a book, output = get an age. Don't trouble yourself over the philosophy.[/list]

I read most of this thread and haven't seen this come up. I'm sorry if it has already.

Since writers are essentially following D'ni's rules on writing, I understand that you basically won't be allowed to write an age that is ridiculously dangerous, or crazy. But what about something that can be interpreted as a 'glitch' in the age? You make a tiny mistake somewhere in the writing process, that, under a specific circumstance causes the age's reality to collapse. Something, that the guilds didn't run into while inspecting the age.

I read most of this thread and haven't seen this come up. I'm sorry if it has already.

Since writers are essentially following D'ni's rules on writing, I understand that you basically won't be allowed to write an age that is ridiculously dangerous, or crazy. But what about something that can be interpreted as a 'glitch' in the age? You make a tiny mistake somewhere in the writing process, that, under a specific circumstance causes the age's reality to collapse. Something, that the guilds didn't run into while inspecting the age.

Actualy The guild of Maintainers sent someone(s) from the guild into the age to check to see if the age was
safe to link to. They checked out everything and also I'm told they had devices and security and backups in case
there was something wrong with the age, like they wore special maintainers suits, like a high tech space suit they wore
always when linking to a new written age in case if the air was unbreathable or toxic.

If you are thinking of the StarFissure anomally Which I lean twards Ghen created it when he wrote Riven, Ghen's
ages were like a cut and paste snippits from other already written ages mixed in with his limited Writing ability,
created the StarFissure. But who knows for sure. Riven was written after the fall so of coarse no maintainer
ever checked it out.

Let's face it all we need is a linking book in the city that connects to Ahra Phats all other connections could go via that access.

Weather it happens or not is a moot point and totally in Cyans Bailywick/Gift/Remit (choose your own word). Note I am not suggesting it should be anything other than this (before I get blattered).

As for finding an age written by Gehn his ages were notorious for instability. You could build an age that you suspected of being Gehns 132nd age as long as you leave that plausible denyability so that Cyan could in the future declare you were wrong all along and that it was just some apprentice age writers fumblings not even up to Gehns mediocre standards.

Far better to build an age that at some point in the future Cyan would adopt as an age of some acclaimed writer of "King Whatever III" (Yes I know it's a made up name)

They have made the rules clear No Yeesha Magic no Tinkering with the Characters and don't use our Textures (there is a codicil about if it's to fit in with the existing look and feel (pubs etc) and then subject to Cyan approval) And from what I can gather this is not totally clear.

I always wondered why Cyan said not to use our textures for?
I would think that they would make a new updated version of UU, same setup as before.
have to buy a kigi key to become a member which gives you the ability to log into any of the
shards on the network, other wise you are stuck on the new (D'mala) shard.

Then Cyan could do its own "COS" Cyan Open Sorce.
(and only to members) allow age writers to use URU's textures and objects etc.
It would be a 1000000000000 times easer building ages as well IMO. ie; be kind of a Gehn style method of
writing ages. It would help keep the (look and feel) of URU more intact too. Writers will still be able to use their own
everything if they so desire, it'd be up the writer. Cyan also let shard owners MOD and change things in the city.
there was a forum site back then called 'Clockwork Orange' that was much like MOZDEV OS site for firefox browser.
They had all sorts of tools and plugins even had a MOD user KI which was automaticly switched for the normal KI
when ever you went to D'mala Cyan's Shard. All user made plugins etc. were not allowed.
I really think this could work again, at least it would start the ball rolling once again.

What would be real neet is to have a central message/event viewer which would post all the officail events and notices
warnings etc. on it for all to see and read. maybe it could be like a RSS feeder that would run along the bottom or top of the screen
that would appear after you click on a new KI button or something. Of coarse the Guild of messangers would be running it.

The Story of Atrus is only one mans tale, But what about starting your own story of another D'ni mans tale?
this would be very hard to do because you would need to use referances to say one of the Kings or maybe a perticular Bahro
whom this man got to know and learned from. To me for a user made age to have velidity and to be believable there is going to have to be referances to known D'ni persons that might of only been mentioned once in the books for example (not nessassarly to the main charactors) objects such as the linking book stand and bahro stones, (textures should be the same or maybe mod them to go with their ages lighting etc.)
Suttle things like this help keep the connection and firmilarity to URU.
I hope I made some sense with this.

Basicly one NEEDS to have a 'seed' point. or a starting point of referance
( meaning some ingame 'canon' object or place or person ) for a created age etc.
to get its start from. IMO: I still think this would be so much easier if MODs ( GOW etc.)
could use ALL the game assets they wanted plus their own if they want.
when creating their ages or MODs of 'Their' Hood
City Instances etc.